About This Data

Prescribing data from Medicare’s prescription drug benefit, known as Part D, was compiled and released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency that oversees the program. The data for 2016 includes more than 1.5 billion prescriptions written by 1.1 million doctors, nurses and other providers. This database lists over 460,000 of those providers who wrote 50 or more prescriptions for at least one drug that year. More than three-fourths of these prescriptions went to patients 65 and older; the rest were for disabled patients. Methodology »